October 28, 2012

JIM LEYLAND:Â First of all, congratulations to Bruce Bochy and his SanFrancisco Giants.Â Obviously there was no doubt about it, they swept us.Â So there was certainly no bad breaks, no fluke.Â I tip my hat to them.
Simple, they did better than we did. Q.Â I know we got the medical evaluation on Infante, but from what you saw how bad was the injury there?
JIM LEYLAND:Â Well, he was in a lot of pain.Â It's a displaced fracture of the hand is what the report is.Â The X‑rays showed it's cracked.Â They determined it's a displaced fracture.Â He was obviously in a lot of pain.Â Obviously when you get hit with one like that, plus the cold weather, that's a tough take.Â But he's got a long time to recuperate, obviously. Q.Â Peralta's ball, the two that he hit, the first one looked like it got knocked back, the second one out to left‑center looked like it carried.Â What did you make of those two?
JIM LEYLAND:Â Well, that's Mother Nature.Â The wind sometimes was just blowing them out, and other times it was holding some up.Â Just hit it at the wrong time, I guess.Â We caught a break on Miggy's I thought.Â That one blew out of the ballpark.Â So we caught a break on that one.
But no bad breaks.Â We got beat.Â You can't sit up here and try to find some reason or excuse.Â They beat us.Â They earned it.Â We didn't hit enough.Â Obviously we had five hits again tonight.Â So you just turn the page and move on, and like I said, congratulations to the Giants.Â They did a fantastic job.Â For a team that was down to Cincinnati 0‑2 and came back and won and fought their way through the other series, they deserved it.Â They're the world champions and they deserve to be the world champions.Q.Â Going from sweeping in one series to getting swept in the next series, is it as much of a roller coaster on the inside as it feels from out here?
JIM LEYLAND:Â Yeah.Â I mean, I'm a little bit flabbergasted to be honest with you.Â In both of those series, I never would have thought that we would have swept the New York Yankees, and I never would have thought that the Giants would have swept us, but it happened.
It's a freaky game, and it happened, and so be it. Q.Â After the walk to Garcia, the at‑bat there, to go from that at‑bat to the strikeouts that Affeldt was able to get after that.Â How much steam do you think that took out of your team?
JIM LEYLAND:Â I mean, you're feeling pretty good.Â The kid had a great at‑bat to get on base leading off that inning, and you've got your three big guys coming up, and Affeldt pitched them tough and he pitched them great.Â He struck out the side.Â You've just got to tip your hat to him.Â But certainly we were feeling pretty good when we got in that situation, when Garcia got the walk.Â I was feeling pretty darned good.
But Affeldt really pitched him tough, made some nasty pitches, and he's been real good for them.Â Their bullpen is fantastic. Q.Â I know it's really soon, but how do you sum up the season as a whole for you guys?
JIM LEYLAND:Â Well, like I said before the game in my office, if somebody told me in Spring Training that we would be in the World Series, I would have had to say I'll take that.Â It was kind of a weird way that we got there because we were a little inconsistent all year.Â Then we played pretty good when we had to to get the division, and we obviously played pretty good through the first two rounds of the playoffs.Â We got to the World Series, and we just sputtered offensively.
But like I said, if somebody would have told me in February that you're going to go to the World Series this year, I would have had to say, well, that's a pretty successful season.Q.Â How do you go about turning the page?
JIM LEYLAND:Â I'm not a guy that can't do that.Â I'm a guy that‑‑ I'm disappointed.Â We're going to say our goodbyes tonight.Â I'm disappointed for Mr.Ilitch.Â We wanted this bad for him.Â But when you've been in the game a long time, somebody wins and somebody loses.Â I'm going to go home and I'll hear some talk about it.Â "You guys were not very good in the World Series," and all this and that, but I'm pretty much able to turn the page.
I talked to the guys before the game tonight.Â They played their hearts out.Â They battled their tails off.Â I thought we had some real good at‑bats, starting with Austin Jackson the first at‑bat of the game, he hit a bullet one‑hop to second base.Â We just didn't do good enough.Â They were better than we were, and you can't say anything different.Â I mean, if it goes seven games and you lose the seventh game on a freak play or something, you might say, well, we were as good as they were, but in this series we were not as good as they were, that's simple, you tip your hat to them.
But I'm able to turn the page.Â There's nothing you can do about it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports